Comments | phaidros: Toy Story 3

phaidros

Toy Story 3

Jun 22, 2010 11:21

Some thoughts on the latest Pixar film -- warning: SPOILERS

“I don’t want to sound pretentious here, but Itchy and Scratchy comprise a dramaturgical dyad.” - Nameless writer, The SimpsonsI was worried about TS3, not only because of the standard reasons one worries about sequels to beloved films. I was worried for two reasons ( Read more... )

Comments 2

mishak June 25 2010, 18:56:08 UTC

Do you think there was anything important about the garbage furnace scene, when the toys join hands and accept their imminent destruction. I’m not sure how important it was, but at the moment it felt powerful, and different from anything I’d seen in the other movies. Not that I’d bothered to watch the other two before seeing this one, so my memories are fuzzy. But I think that, while we may have previously heard the toy’s fear about being Thrown Away, it was a vague fear of the unknown; but now we see them staring straight into the mouth of hell - they acknowledge the bonds of each other’s friendship, and bravely accept their fate. It seemed like a significant departure from anything we’ve witnessed in the previous two movies. But, if it was meant to be an important scene, it felt cheapened with the rather flippant rescue by the claw in the sky ( ... )

phaidros June 26 2010, 01:07:42 UTC

The Onion's reviewer (in a podcast) said that, while he liked the movie, he found the ending saccharin and would have preferred it to end with their deaths by fire. I know what he means -- while I'm torn about the actual ending, I do think that ending with them accepting their irrelevance and death would have been mind-blowing. Never gonna happen, but would have been awesome. (See also: Wall-E ending with his death, which also seemed possible)

The thing is, I think Pixar tried to have their cake and eat it too by showing that the toys had accepted their irrelevance, before finding new love with a new child. It was as though, unable to pick between the two options I'd seen as the only possible two, they went for both. So even though that was a stunning moment, that it didn't end up meaning anything really took away from it - it became a moment of affirmation of their bond, which is nice and all, but no longer a way of responding to their larger dilemma ( ... )